The present invention relates to the field of vehicle devices, and, more particularly, to a tracking and alerting system for a vehicle.
Motor vehicles, such as passenger cars, trucks, busses, fleet vehicles, etc. are widely used and knowing the locations of such vehicles is often desired. For example, should a vehicle be stolen, it would be beneficial to know the vehicle""s location so that authorities could be promptly and accurately directed to retrieve the vehicle. Indeed, the tracking system could plot the getaway path of the thief.
For a company with hired drivers, it may desirable to know the driver""s whereabouts during the course of the day. Similarly, a rental car agency or other fleet operator, for example, may wish to know the whereabouts of its fleet of vehicles.
It may also be desirable to track the location of a vehicle as it is used throughout the course of a normal day. For parents of younger or older drivers, for example, knowledge of the vehicle""s location may provide some assurance that the driver is at designated locations and following a prescribed route.
A number of patents disclose various systems and approaches to tracking vehicles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,223,844 discloses a tracking system including a control center and a mobile unit installed in the vehicle. The mobile unit may send security warnings to the command center via a wireless transceiver. Position information for the vehicle is determined using a GPS receiver at the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,515,043 discloses a similar system which may send one or more preprogrammed telephone messages to a user when away from the vehicle. The user may remotely access location information or cause certain commands to be carried out by entering a personal identification number (PIN).
The widespread availability and use of the Internet has prompted a number of vehicle tracking systems to also make use of the Internet. For example, TelEvoke, Inc. proposed such a system in combination with Clifford Electronics. The system was to provide notification, control and tracking services via the telephone or the Internet. Users could be notified via phone, e-mail, or pager of events such as a car alarm being triggered. Users could control the vehicle remote devices via phone, web, or PDA such as unlocking car doors. Additionally, users could track TelEvoke-enabled vehicles on the Internet or via the telephone. An Internet map could be viewed by the user showing the actual and prior vehicle locations. TelEvoke offered its services via a centralized fully automated Network Operations Center. To reduce the communications costs, it was proposed to use the control channel of the cellular telephone network.
Many conventional vehicle tracking units include many input and output connections. Accordingly, such units may be difficult to install in a vehicle. This is especially so since the space available to access and connect to vehicle wires is likely to be restricted. Accordingly, errors in the initial installation may occur. Accurate diagnosis of any such errors may be time consuming and add further to the installation costs. Maintenance of an installed system may also be complicated if each connection must be individually checked and rechecked.
One application for which vehicle tracking units are presently being used is as electronic tethers. For example, a vehicle tracking unit may be used for determining whether vehicles have been removed from a car dealership""s lot. In such applications, the vehicle tracking units are typically programmed with a predetermined area, which is sometimes referred to as a xe2x80x9cG.O. fence,xe2x80x9d and if the vehicle travels outside thereof it is considered stolen. Yet, this approach may be problematic because the predetermined area is typically defined to be overly large because false alarms may otherwise result during test drives. If the predetermined area becomes too large, this may delay response times.
Furthermore, such predetermined areas are typically defined by one or more rectangular boundaries. An example of one such vehicle tracking system using rectangular boundaries is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,313,791 to Klanke. However, such rectangular boundaries may potentially be cumbersome to properly define and program.
In view of the foregoing background, it is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a vehicle tracking unit which may be relatively easily programmed and used for determining whether a vehicle has been removed from a predetermined area.
This and other objects, features, and advantages in accordance with the present invention are provided by a tracking unit for a vehicle which may include a vehicle position determining device, a wireless communications device, and a controller cooperating with the wireless communications device and the vehicle position determining device to determine and send vehicle position information to a monitoring station. The controller may store a user selected reference location and send the vehicle position information based upon the vehicle moving beyond a radial threshold distance from the user selected reference location.
More particularly, the vehicle position information may be sent a threshold time after the vehicle moves beyond the radial threshold distance from the user selected reference location if the vehicle has not moved back within the radial threshold distance. By so doing, the area defined by the user selected reference location and the radial threshold distance may be made smaller than with prior art approaches while still reducing unwanted false alarms, such as from test drives at a dealership during which the vehicle travels briefly outside of the bounded area.
The vehicle tracking unit may further include at least one input device to be positioned within the vehicle for setting the user selected reference location. The at least one input device may also permit user setting of the threshold time. By way of example, the at least one input device may include at least one of a switch, a keyboard, and a keypad. The at least one input device may also cooperate with the vehicle position determining device and the controller to set a current vehicle position as the user selected reference location. Accordingly, a user may advantageously set the user selected reference location (and/or the threshold time) to correspond to any desired position of the vehicle.
Moreover, the threshold time may also be set by the monitoring station. Further, the controller may set the user selected reference location based upon at least one signal provided by the monitoring station. For example, the controller may also cooperate with the vehicle position determining device to set a current vehicle position as the user selected reference location based upon the at least one signal provided by the monitoring station. In addition, the at least one signal may include the user selected reference location.
By way of example, the radial threshold distance may be less than about five miles, and the threshold time may be less than about thirty minutes, although other values may also be used. Additionally, the controller may include at least one memory for storing the user selected reference location and vehicle position information therein, and the vehicle position determining device may be a Global Positioning System (GPS) device, for example.
A method aspect of the invention is for tracking a vehicle using a vehicle tracking unit, such as the one briefly described above, to be carried by the vehicle. The method may include storing a user selected reference location for the vehicle tracking unit and determining vehicle position information using the vehicle tracking unit. Furthermore, vehicle position information may be sent from the vehicle tracking unit to a monitoring station based upon the vehicle moving beyond a radial threshold distance from the user selected reference location.